


I was lost (until you found me)

by Anna Marie Darkholme (WierdAlienFantasies)



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/F, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 01:32:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17478725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WierdAlienFantasies/pseuds/Anna%20Marie%20Darkholme
Summary: Nebula has accepted that she will never meet her soulmate. She doesn't even have a soulmark, Thanos's enhancements long having ripped it out of her body. She has no choice but to move on and forget what could have been.Mantis has accepted that she will never meet her soulmate. She rarely leaves Ego, and when she does it is only to go with him to collect his offspring. She can't quite seem to move on, caught up on what might have been.





	I was lost (until you found me)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glorious_spoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/gifts).



Nebula does not like to dwell on her past for it brings her nothing but pain. For the first 16 years of her life she did not know the name of her species. Her only memories were of life with Thanos, though even then she had known he had taken her from her birth parents. Whenever she had asked him what she was he had always responded with “a disappointment” (or, if she had done particularly poorly in his latest test, “a mistake”). Eventually she accepted she would not receive the answers she sought, and so stopped asking.

But then, on one of her first unsupervised missions, as she was tailing her mark through a rag-tag market one of the stall owners had called out.

“Hey, what’re ya doin’ here?”

Nebula had been gripped by the terror that she’d been made. All the escape routes she’d rehearsed and all the months of specialised training she’d endured receded into the furthest corners of her brain. She had just stood there frozen. The stall owner had leaned closer, looking her up and down with a keen focus before continuing.

“Ain’t seen any Luphomoids for near two decades. Heard ya all died.”

All thoughts of her mission had left Nebula’s mind at his words. It had taken all her control to mask her growing excitement as she attempted to question him.

“You… you have met others like me?”

The stall owner had shrugged.

“Well yeah, Luphom ain’t too far from here. Used to get a couple of ya passin’ through every year. Then all of a sudden, nothin’. Not a single one, year after year. As I said, rumour was somethin’ happened, killed the lot of ya. Clearly the rumour ain’t true.”

Before Nebula could reply, the sound of plasma fire had rung out. The market had dissolved into chaos, sweeping Nebula away from the stall owner. Releasing her mark was in danger, Nebula had reluctantly returned to her mission. Later that night she’d snuck back to the stall only to find it abandoned. She had found signs of a struggle, but no body. She’d heard enough though. Thanks to that one stall keeper, she now had the name of a planet and its people.

Several months and many hours of frantically trawling through datanets later, Nebula had discovered as much as she could about Luphomoids and filed it away in her memory. Most of it she could explain away as useful, facets of anatomy that could feasibly be of use when she invariably got injured. One fact that she couldn’t quite justify committing to memory for any real use was the fact that Luphomoids were one of the species with soulmarks.  

According to “Love without Boundaries: Soulmarks across Species” (a datasite Nebula had not known what to think of given its insistence that love was not only real but easily attainable) Luphomoids were born with the name of their soulmate written somewhere on their skin. She had instantly scoured her skin for the name, but quickly realised that with part of her replaced by cybernetics and synthskin her soulmark was no longer visible. She had been afraid to ask Thanos if it had been a coincidence or if he had purposely removed her mark. In the end she convinced herself it did not matter. She would likely never meet her soulmate and, even if she did, they could not possibly love the monster Thanos had made her into.

...

Sometimes Mantis remembers her mother. The memories are patchy, more a mixture of muted colours and swirling sensations than anything solid. Mantis thinks her mother was very beautiful, in the way all very young children see their mothers as paragons of beauty. She does know her mother loved her very much, her ability having been developed even at such a young age. Ego took her when she was still a young larvae, so by the time she was capable of forming true memories she was no longer among her kind.

Ego had not been a very attentive guardian. She had once thought his behaviour was normal, that it was fine for him to ignore her most of the time except when he needed her for something. She now knows that was not the case, but even with hindsight she still believes he had his moments. On occasion, after leaving her to carry out his very important mission, Ego would return with books from other worlds. He would present them to Mantis, and she would have to act suitably grateful.

Most of the books were in languages Mantis could not even name, much less read. A precious few were in Kree or Xandarian or Galactic Standard, languages Ego had seen fit to teach her. It from those books that she had been able to find out bits and pieces of her people, snippets of their biology and history and customs. The thing she had been most excited to discover was that her species had soulmarks. Somewhere out there in the universe was a sentient being that was destined to be her soulmate.

She spent many a lonely afternoon dreaming of their meeting, and of the beautiful colours that would grace her skin on their first touch. At first she would eagerly touch every sentient she met, just in case. As time went by she realized she couldn’t do that, her powers picking up the confusion and anger and repulsion of those she grabbed onto. She still thought of her soulmate, but gradually the hope that she’d ever meet them faded away.

...

When Nebula first met Mantis, she should have barely glanced at her. She had many more important things to focus on, such as escaping from her sister and the so-called Guardians, finding a more practical left hand than the claw she’d hastily fashioned seventeen cycles ago and finally getting a piece of that yaro root (she bet it was really ripe, and her sister and the lumbering Destroyer had just been taunting her earlier). Yes, there had been many things she should have been thinking about. She had found that all of them simply faded away when she locked eyes with the woman accompanying the man claiming to be Quill’s father.

There was something about the woman. Nebula couldn’t (or wouldn’t) quite grasp what exactly it was, and so she dismissed it as disdain for how obviously weak she was. Or maybe she had sustained more damage than she thought in her capture by the Soverign and the Benetar’s crash, leading to her impaired functioning now. Nebula forced herself to turn away from the woman and return her focus to her escape plans. As she debated whether she could feasibly take on the destroyer missing one arm she pushed all thoughts of the woman to the back of her mind. She did not forget her however, her smooth skin and eyes that matched hers in tone but seemed so much more alive burning itself into her memory.

...

When Mantis first met Nebula, she was busy repeating Ego’s strict instructions to herself. He so rarely allowed her to accompany him on his missions to retrieve his offspring that she wanted to savour every second she can get away from the stifling presence of the world that is him. A small voice inside of her had been begging her to warn Peter of what was to come. She hated (and still hates) what happened when Ego brought his offspring back. Peter and his friends were friendly and funny and she didn’t think they deserved what would happen at all.

She had been so busy worrying about what was to come that she hadn’t realized she was staring unit movement had recaptured her attention. To her shock she had been staring not off into the distance as was usual when she dreamed but right at one of the aliens accompanying Peter. She had not been introduced alongside the others and unlike them she hung back, wrists cuffed together. Mantis had never seen another being like her, a body the colour of deep water broken by the glint of silver machinery. Even from where she stood Mantis could sense a little of her emotions, a violent ocean of pain and anger with a faint undercurrent of fear and loneliness.

Mantis had initially thought it was the emotions, so strong and terrible, that left her unable to look away. She had realized it was something else though, something deeper. There had been something in the dark eyes staring back at her, so like her own and yet so very different, that drew Mantis in. She could have been staring for hours, or maybe just a second, before the other woman turned away. Mantis had wanted to approach her, but knew that would anger Ego. As she and Ego had boarded his craft, alongside Peter and the ones called Gamora and Drax, she had felt inexplicably sad to leave the other alien behind.

...

Mantis looses track of time in the cycles after Ego’s destruction and Yondu’s death. The swirling waves of grief from those around her and the emptiness where Ego’s oppressive presence once sat within her own mind leave her drained and of little use. It distresses her not to be of help, until Gamora gently takes her aside and assures her it is fine. On Gamora’s suggestion, Mantis retreats to a quiet corner of the Ecclector to find some peace and gather her thoughts. What she finds instead is the blue and silver woman she has learnt is Nebula, Gamora’s sister.

“I am sorry. I did not realize you were here. I did not mean to disturb you.”

Before Nebula can respond the Ecclector lurches, knocking Mantis from her feet and sending her flying towards the ground. Nebula seemingly reacts on pure instinct, her right arm shooting out to catch Mantis. She grips Mantis by her upper arm, and a flare of pain sears across her skin causing her to give a quiet exclamation.

“Oh!”

Nebula immediately snatches her hand away, a flicker of what might be shame briefly crossing her face. Looking down, she clenches and unclenches her cybernetic hand as she says.

“Watch it. I grip… harder than I used to.”

Mantis doesn’t really hear her words. She is staring in awe at the swirling blue and purple hand-print that now adorns her upper arm. After all this time, she has finally found her. Her soulmate. She is caught up in a maelstrom of emotions too complex to even begin to process. Nebula, noticing Mantis’s silence, glances up and pales on seeing the mark.

“I did not mean to grasp so hard. I did not realize you bruised so easily…”

“I do not.”

Mantis cuts her off.

“This is no bruise. It is a soulmark.”

At the word Nebula freezes, disbelief on her face. Mantis waits with baited breath for a response, some flicker of joy or dismay or recognition, but gets nothing. Nebula stays completely and utterly still. Growing nervous, Mantis blurts out.

“I am sorry. Drax tells me I am very hideous, and Ego always said I am weak. It must be very disappointing to have me as a soulmate.”

That seems to get through to Nebula. She focuses back in on Mantis, her eyes blazing as she snaps out.

“Ego was a monster, and Drax is a fool.”

Mantis’s heart quickens, and she allows herself to hope.

“Does this mean… you are not upset?”

Nebula’s expression falters, and she shifts awkwardly.

“Yes… that is, no… I mean… I never thought this would happen. Or whatever. I don’t have the words.”

She growls in frustration. An idea comes to Mantis. Taking a step forward, she offers out her hand.

“Maybe you don’t need them. Maybe you could show me instead?”

Nebula stares at her outstretched hand for a moment, seemingly torn. Then she reaches out with her right hand (the flesh one, Mantis notes) and Mantis’s world lights up in emotions. There’s that pain and anger again, two emotions she’s come to realize are a constant background to Nebula’s life. At the foreground though is a confusing swirl of emotions. There’s fear, the biting concern that this is all a trick or that she will fail this as she has failed everything else. There’s also a tiny spark of hope, that idea that just maybe she does have a soul after all. Beneath them both there’s another emotion, one Mantis has rarely sensed and never felt herself until now. Warm and bright, it casts a flickering glow over Nebula’s every thought. It is the soulbond. Mantis knows this without a doubt, because she feels it within her own mind as well.  

Smiling, Mantis adjusts her grip so that her fingers interlock with Nebula’s. Another flurry of emotions tumble into her mind. Grasping on the most prominent one, she speaks.

“Don’t worry, I’m new to this too. But we can figure it out, together.”

“Together?”

Nebula;s voice has just the tiniest hint of hope to it. Mantis gives her hand a squeeze as she nods her head.

“Together.”


End file.
